Weird question- Are the touch screens on the Leica tcrp 1200 water permeable?
The reason I ask, is this weekend I did some staking during pretty hard rain. I have a good system to protect the gun from rain that I have developed over the years but I have had trouble with moisture with the older tcr 1100‘s but with the newer tcra 1100’s they were tight. This 1200 has been good so far but we hadn’t exposed it to challenging conditions until this weekend. The gun has no visible moisture inside but both the touch screens swelled up and got so big for the space they wrinkled across the face. Since then I have had them on 68 degrees with fan blowing lightly – one screen has flattened out but the other side is still wrinkled. The reason I suspect permeable screen is when water sits on the screen it causes a whitish spot on screen that won’t wipe away with paper towel or toilet paper, seems to be within screen material.
Any chance that it is a screen protector over the touchscreen that is soaking up the water?
I just looked at gun - can't see any screen protector. We didn't put any on from new and I can't see any "edges". Wrinkled part seems way to thick to be a screen protector.
We use the gun as robot so never really use touch screen. Maybe a screen protector would waterproof factory screen? What about spray on waterproof? It would make gun look cheesy but might make sense.
It's hard to tell from the manual. It does list the protection against water, dust, and sand as IP54. The "4" corresponds to water: Protected against splash water from any direction.
IP information from IP rating table.
> I just looked at gun - can't see any screen protector. We didn't put any on from new and I can't see any "edges".
Have you ever had the case of this thing open? If you have, that's your problem. The gasket has to be replaced every time the case is opened to maintain the moisture tightness. Every time. Won't reseal.
Seals get old and leak. I haven't any experience with this particular model but I've never heard of a permeable screen. And I've worked many a day in the rainy Pacific Northwest.
Packing the whole thing in dry rice can help dry it out. The rice is a desiccant.
> We use the gun as robot so never really use touch screen. Maybe a screen protector would waterproof factory screen? What about spray on waterproof? It would make gun look cheesy but might make sense.
You should just get a screen protector and replace it from time to time. But that has nothing to do, directly, with you current problem.
Spraying on water proofing - whatever that might be - is crazy talk.
Thks for the info, we are familiar with IP ratings and waterproofness as we do all work in coastal Alaska and deal with moisture on a depressingly regular basis. The best gun we ever had for wet was the sokkia set5w – you could submerse this instrument!
None of us have ever seen a screen swell up and that’s why the question.
You would be surprised what spray on waterproofing will do if maintained. _ you might also be surprised what surveyors will do to work in challenging environments.
While I can't speak to your particular situation, I can provide a simple and super cheap alternative to the so called screen protectors.
Just wrap it up with some plain old kitchen plastic wrap.
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I'd have to agree. How long has it been since the instruments seals were changed. Your repair center, do they do a good job ( ie- if they've taken the display off dis they properly change out the seals). They go bad, problem is most ppl don't want to properly maintain their instruments.
To answer the initial question- no it is not permeable and no, it is not a common issue.
we wrapped paper towels in plastic wrap over both screens/buttons for work the next day.
Kept water out, is not good fix as kind of pain in butt and looks a little fly by night
> we wrapped paper towels in plastic wrap over both screens/buttons for work the next day.
> Kept water out, is not good fix as kind of pain in butt and looks a little fly by night
My idea was meant to be pre-emptive. Not after the fact. 🙂
I never used a screen protector per se. Not those $7 POS thingys anyhow. Plastic wrap works just fine.
I/we did caught in a big nasty storm one afternoon. Being the I-man I pulled the DC off the setup and tucked it inside my shirt. That was baby after all. Then I packed up the gun and legs and then got in the truck and headed out to find my PC. I found him soaking wet and I was soaking wet but my little baby DC (Carlson Explorer) was tucked comfortably and warm and dry still in my shirt. Granted we were all soaking wet head to toe, but to be safe, I laid the DC face down on some paper towels just in case.
There is a company that is now applying a waterproofing on a nano scale for various electronic devices, mostly smartphones. It would be interesting if they could apply the same to our data collectors and the important electrical parts of the instrument.
They are called Liquipel: http://www.liquipel.com/
